Doug Barry

Anthony Hensley, a 37-year-old married father of two young daughters, drowned on Sunday in a Des Plaines area pond after the swans he cared for apparently flipped his kayak over, a terrifying incident proving that fate's sense of irony is getting really morbid.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times , Hensley worked for a company that used swans and dogs to keep geese away from properties, and was checking on the swans near a series of condiminiums when one of the animals attacked him, causing him to roll off his kayak and into the pond. Investigators believe that Hensley may have veered too close to the swans' nesting area and that, in an effort to prevent him from seeing one of its ugly hatchlings, a swan used some its patented avian violence to fend him off (seriously, swans and geese are really mean). Hensley's father — who says his son loved working with animals — was dumbfounded by the incident and suggests that his son may not have used enough force to protect himself, fearing, perhaps, that he'd hurt one of the animals.